The thinking is this will help keep cornering speeds down and hopefully reduce the turbulence coming from the back of F1 cars, allowing them to follow each other more closely.

However with the teams already deciding to get rid of them in 2011, it does suggest a feeling that double diffusers may hamper the quality of racing this year.

Most if not all teams are likely to have an interpretation of the double diffusers on their cars. Teams like Red Bull and Ferrari, who did not have them on their cars at the start of 2009, will be able to fully integrate the designs into the 2010 designs.

Providing the teams can agree on a suitably tightly-worded rule this time, I think the double diffuser ban is a sensible decision. As I wrote earlier this week:

The design of the cars has a serious effect on how closely they can follow each other. If that?óÔé¼Ôäós going to be improved, the FIA needs to look at long-term changes as well as quick fixes it can make in the next two months.

Electing to get rid of double diffusers at the end of the year, when everyone has ample time to design revised cars to meet the new rules, makes a lot of sense.

While they’re at it, can they also do something about the less consequential but still quite ugly pod-wings which appeared on most cars last year, despite hopes we were going to see the return of clean sidepods?

I wondered that. But in order to give the teams enough time to design the 2010 cars without double diffusers they would have to had done it very soon after the decision in April to allow them. That would have looked very hypocritical!

exactly pedro, why does every thing have to be made harder than it is in F1. When all the fuss was about in the first place it would have been extremely simple to ban them for 2010, thus allowing it to be integrated into the 2010 cars. Death by a thousand committee meetings

From some of the reports at the time, I thought there had been an agreement around April to remove the slotted-floor loophole. Obviously the FIA’s emergency budget cap announcement and resulting talk of the manufacturer breakaway meant they never got around to it.

Incidentally I do think that the diffusers were given far too much credit for (a) speed advantage and (b) overtaking disadvantage. There’ll be more overtaking at the start of 2010, as there is at the start of every season, then performance disparities will start to disappear, new drivers will fully dial in to their cars and we’ll be back to more processional races after the first few laps.

D’oh, an agreement *between the teams* to remove the loophole *for the 2010 season* I mean. Closing it immediately (in 2009) would have been grossly unfair on the teams that found and exploited a totally legitimate loophole.

thats good news for several reasons finally kills the difuser discution it isnt a very visible part of the car so being all the same or similar is not going to have a big impact on the car stetics and less downforce equals more fun

In my view, they were right to legalize the difuser in the beginning of the 2009 season: Brawn just took advantage of the fact the rules were not explicit enough, they didn’t break them. Nice to them. However, when that decision was made, they should’ve taken to opportunity to make it illegal for 2010 – it was still early and wouldn’t have compromised the designs.

Further more to that, Ross Brawn even told the teams and people involved in the FIA’s overtaking group that the rules could be easily interperated in such a way that even the then Honda team could have won races.

While theyâ€™re at it, can they also do something about the less consequential but still quite ugly pod-wings which appeared on most cars last year, despite hopes we were going to see the return of clean sidepods?

I thought F1 was supposed to be about racing not design aesthetics.

While I can see the logic in the reduction of turbulence to aid overtaking is it not a technologically retrograde step? F1 is supposed to be the pinnacle of automotive technology but it has already fallen behind the most advanced consumer road cars, shouldn’t something be done to readdress this?

The teams have had a vested interest for years in spectalular aero-technology specifically designed to give any following car a hard time…equals scarce overtaking as we all know. But that was in the days of money-to-burn budgets which we all hope are gone forever.

Now all F1 teams are going to have to slash their huge aero-tec teams to keep in budget. So why can’t we get rid now of ALL the aero-gizmos ? The racing, which is what we go to see, would be spectacular !

tbh, F1 can’t be the pinacle of technology anymore because the pinacle would most likely kill you dead.

However I think its safe to assume that we want F1 to be the pinacle of motorsport which in many ways it still is.

I think getting rid of the diffusers is certainly a good idea, but, aerodynamics in generall has run its course, every year the designs produce more downforce an more tubulance because their working the air harder, special regulations can attempt to counter this but the teams will still be searching for better shapes, an aerodynamic thingies, to stick on their cars for downforce. Whenever this happens the air behind becomes more turbulent and it becomes harder to follow. Simply put, overtaking will always be rare in f1 if the teams are consticted to finding performance mostly from aero.

Now, there have been a few suggestions that now refuelings gone, teams will be encouraged to find ways to get their cars past on track. This is in my mind a but of an off chance, an really depends on how the new race dynamic works, an how much time is still going to be lost and gained in the pit stops alone.

However in my opinion, an refer to Keiths banned! series for better info, there are lots of ways to start slashing aero grip and heightening mechanical grip, while maintaining F1’s technological preeminence, and importantly keeping cornering speeds at a level where they won’t kill the drivers but will be faster then anyone else.

If the FIA where to unban many of the mechanical things to have been banned over the year the teams would start to focus more on this area, more mechanical grip innovations would come as a result, partly because teams wouldn’t be scared of the FIA banning any good ideas an the ratio between aero and mechanical might start to shift.

Once mechanical is more important than aero you simply don’t have to worry about turbulance in the same way.

A lot of that was put down to tyre compounds, it did seem a little odd though, i’m sure i saw cars with the same tyres following each other through bends.

When you think about it the DDD really exacerbates the sensitivities of the front wing. It’s a very low, high turbulence device that pushes air up right from the area the front wing might otherwise have been working.

It makes it more annoying that people didn’t people didn’t twig this when Ross raised it, as the front wing is given a higer ratio of downforce to produce in relation to the 2008 cars compared to the rest of the body.

I hope they do get banned, when it became apparent that they had left loopholes in the 2009 regulations I thought the FIA would have tightened up the 2010 rules. I also hope they take the opportunity to get rid of the pod-wings.

The idea was to get rid of those sort of aero pieces with the changes for 2009 but when Ross Brawn pointed out the rules were not tight enough when they were being written up no one listened.

I just hope they don’t change anymore rules for 2011. It’s almost a tradition to change something every year. Are the regulations really that bad? Goodness. Its already hard to follow as a mild Fanatic, can’t imagine for the casual viewers.

I’m just glad it’s happening at all. I don’t mind waiting as we have the refuelling ban to encourage overtaking. It would be better to happen sooner rather than later but at least we know the odds are that the ddds are on their way out.

Ferrari claimed they had to redesign their gearbox and other stuff to fit in the double diffuser, so they probably will have to redo everything as will several other teams. I guess it does have some cost implication